The Mueller Report: June 15, 2018

            IM:  Gentlemen, I had an interesting dream last night.  It involved a report by newly appointed special counsel Robert Mueller to the Deputy Attorney General, Rod Rosenstein.  It summarized findings stemming from his investigation.  With Rosenstein’s permission the report was allowed to be made public at a national press conference on Friday, June 15, 2018 at 2:00 PM Eastern Standard Time.

            AM:  I suspect, as Democrats have been pining for, Mueller's report sought prosecution of President Trump and some of his lieutenants.  After all, when Mueller was the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), he actually reported to Comey when Comey was the Deputy Attorney General.  News reports indicate they had a cozy relationship. In the left’s opinion, prosecution would be suitable retribution for colluding with the Russians to steal the election.

            

          Old Gadfly:  IM, before we hear about your dream, let me remind you that there is a reason we have heard members of the left refer to the current developments as “Nixonian” or “shades of Watergate.”  There have been deliberate actions by Democrats that parallel efforts to take down Nixon.  The media amplified the effect then as now. On the 10^th of May, this was a New York Times headline:  “In Trump Firing of James Comey, Echoes of Watergate.”  Today’s Democrats essentially held Rod Rosenstein hostage to the idea of a special counsel in order to secure confirmation.  Similar actions took place when Democrats held hostage Elliott Richardson and William Ruckelshaus for attorney general and deputy attorney general, respectively.  This took place during Senate confirmation hearings as Watergate was unfolding.  Although this may sound like a strange connection, Richardson’s so called “independent prosecutor,” Archibald Cox, was cozy with Democrats, actually inviting Senators Ted Kennedy and the widow of Robert Kennedy to his swearing in ceremony.[1]  One would think that Cox would take the necessary precautions to avoid appearing partisan. 

As I explained in a previous discussion, in the 1950s U.S. Congressman Richard Nixon was the lead investigator that led to the conviction of Alger Hiss, a Communist agent for the Soviet GRU but a close friend of highly placed Democrats.  According to Philip Elman, in 1943, he, Alger Hiss, and Archibald Cox worked together under Dean Acheson at the State Department.[2]  Do you get the drift? 

Unfortunately, a lot of what we know about Watergate is folklore.  More recent historians secured access to recently released original documents that indicate Nixon was innocent of any crimes yet unjustly convicted based on fabrications and manipulation of the public narrative.  In other words, Nixon was tried and convicted in the public court, orchestrated by power centers on the left:  Democrats (elected and in judicial roles) and the media.  In the process, laws were broken in terms of conspiracy and collusion by prosecutors and judges.[3]  And the media loves leaks now as they did then.  Tell me again.  How are The New York Times and The Washington Post different from Wikileaks?

            

           AM:  They are worse—they betray the essence of freedom of the press in America.  However, there is some irony and an abundance of truth in Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s observation that American newspapers are like the Communist newspapers of the former Soviet Union.  So Trump is screwed!!  Déjà vu all over again!!  

           

           IM:  Take a breath guys.  Let me tell you my dream.  You are going to find this hard to believe.  Here goes . . .

Going into the summer of 2018, Democrats were projected to rout Republicans in the mid-term elections—nationally and at the state level.  The media was already spiking the football as public figures from the left talked about the final phase of a transformed America.  Finally, one political party was on the verge of completely dominating political values for America.  America was about to become Soviet America, adopting the Communist Party USA’s slogan:  people and planet before profit.

Democrats kept investigations going in the House and Senate, periodically giving press reports that they were close to completing them, that they were convinced of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians.  Every week there was some bombshell report in The New York Times or Washington Post based on leaks from anonymous sources within the government.  Hillary Clinton began building a campaign staff for the 2020 elections.  Surprisingly, throughout this time, Mueller provided absolutely no reports on the investigation.  Miraculously, there were no leaks from his staff.

Then, on Thursday, June 14, 2018, Mueller announced that he would publicly present the results of the investigation the next day at 2:00 PM Eastern Standard Time.  Not known for drama, Mueller requested a coliseum and maximum coverage on all the networks.  Republicans and Trump supporters were already preparing for the bad news.  Democrats and the media were already talking about lengthy prison terms and celebrating final retribution for stealing the election.

The appointed time arrived.  Mueller took the stage and announced two major findings.  First, there was no evidence of collusion with Russia.  Second, the investigation into any evidence of obstruction of justice revealed serious violations of the law.  Commentators on MSNBC and CNN wanted to be the first to start listing names of those they believed were involved:  President Trump when he suggested that “I hope you can let it go,” Lt General Flynn, Jared Kushner, Steve Bannon, and so forth. 

Then, Mueller looked into the camera and declared the investigation revealed a network of conspirators with an overwhelming rabbit trail of incriminating evidence.  Secret grand juries had already been held, gag orders were issued to all parties involved. 

The thread for this aspect of the investigation began with Comey.  Mueller wanted to know if the Wikileaks material had any other source other than Russia.  He discovered that the Washington DC police had been investigating the death of Seth Rich, an idealistic 27-year old staff member of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) but had been pressured by Comey to back off since the FBI was already investigating this issue in light of the broader Russian collusion investigation.  Mueller discovered that while Russia had in fact hacked into the DNC email system, the actual material from Wikileaks actually came from Seth Rich.  Rich was found with two bullets to the back.  His wallet was intact with cash and credit cards—clearly the appearance of an assassination.  Authentic emails from Podesta previously expressed the intent to make an example of a leaker, “whether or not we have any real basis for it.”  This communication was more than circumstantial and far more egregious than President Trump’s “I hope you can let it go” request of Comey.  The Clinton campaign insisted upon not working with the press, unless they could directly control the narrative.  Yet, when it came to their attempt to spin the news with the trumped up Russian dossier on candidate Trump, I became very concerned that the FBI actually contributed to the narrative by leaking it to the press.

Obviously, we opened the aperture and justified reopening the Clinton email case.  We reversed immunity granted to various members associated with this case.  Despite an aggressive attempt to destroy evidence—an act that is obstruction of justice—we gathered sufficient evidence to seek indictments from a grand jury.  Besides Hillary, husband William, John Podesta, Sidney Blumenthal, and a host of other associates, we will be pursuing prosecutions and maximum sentences.  Commentators on MSNBC and CNN were visibly shocked.  Some began to cry uncontrollably.

Mueller continued.  The thread of our investigation led to other criminal activity within the Justice Department, the FBI, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the National Security Council (NSC), the National Security Agency (NSA), and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).  Although Lois Lerner deserved prosecution for her role in censoring voices on the right, we granted immunity to get evidence that took us not only to the political officer appointed to the IRS, but to members of the White House staff.  Valerie Jarrett immediately sought immunity to provide evidence that proved Barack Obama was involved in covering up illegal activity in Fast and Furious, the Benghazi attack, prisoner exchanges with Afghanistan and Iran, and other less known activities.  Attorneys General Holder and Lynch also conspired to support political actions contrary to public law.  These were the big fish in the conspiracy.  Since the evidence is irrefutable, we are pressing forward with these prosecutions as we also continue to follow the thread throughout the conspiracy, to include leakers within the NSC, the FBI, the NSA, and the CIA.  We are also considering seditious behavior considerations for journalists who collaborated in these activities knowing the motive or intent of the leakers was to subvert the legitimacy of a constitutionally elected President.

Although I did not vote for President Trump, nor do I even appreciate his agenda or style, as a man of the law, I had no other moral obligation but to enforce actions in his attempt to drain the swamp.  That completes my presentation; I will be taking no questions.

AM:  Wow.  Your dream is wishful thinking.

Old Gadfly:  Cicero observed similar dangers in his own day.  We would be wise to recognize the similarities captured in Cicero's statement:

A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear.

Let us hope that Mueller understands this caution and helps our nation save its soul.   

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[1] For a well-documented history on Archibald Cox and his Watergate connection, see Archibald Cox. (2017, May 18). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 22:50, May 18, 2017, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Archibald_Cox&oldid=780960548

[2] Norman I. Silber, With All Deliberate Speed:  The Life of Philip Elman:  An Oral History Memoir in Mr. Elman’s Words, (Ann Arbor, MI:  The University of Michigan Press, 2004), p. 140.

[3] For instance, see Geoff Shepard, The Real Watergate Scandal:  Collusion, Conspiracy, and the Plot that Brought Nixon Down, (Washington, DC:  Regnery History, 2015).